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Pokey Reese signed a 1 year, $1 million contract with the Red Sox earlier this week. Last week, Ben Grieve signed a 1 year, $750,000 contract with the Brewers. Both of these players were on my suggested off-season acquisitions, and their combined salaries will be $400,000 less than the Mighty McCracken will take to the bank.

We’re getting a lot of requests for write-ups on some of the more obscure minor league guys, and I’ll make this a priority after the new year. I’ll update the Future Forty (goodbye Allan Simpson…) before Spring Training as well.

Also, it has gone mostly unnoticed so far, but as it stands on December 26th, the American League West sucks. First one to 85 wins gets the crown?

In today’s Times, Larry Stone has a longish feature on the Bavasi family and their involvement in professional baseball over the years. If nothing else, this should serve as a reminder that despite his relative youth (45), current M’s GM Bill Bavasi is very much from the old school in the way he approaches his job. It would be a huge upset if he were to suddenly — as someone at our recent gathering suggested might be possible — change his ways to what is currently considered “enlightened” baseball thinking.

I don’t mean this to sound negative, because certainly Pat Gillick built some very good teams with his manner of thinking. However, I do think it’s important to understand the sort of GM Bavasi is going to be and go from there when we all consider, critique, evaluate, etc., his decisions.